The “Quatro Fábricas da Luz” is an official hiking route in Sao Miguel, an island in the Azores. It’s a path that winds down a valley tracing the route of late 19th and early 20th Century hydro electric power stations created by an engineer called José Cordeiro. It’s a genuinely fascinating experience to see these remnants of a bygone Industrial Age, and to see how over 100 years ago engineers were trying to harness the power of water to create energy rather than using fossil fuels. A smart move!
The walk starts at the top of the valley where there's a car park. The walk takes you past a small reservoir which is actually used to supply water for a contemporary hydro-power generator further down the valley, so the technology is still being used, we've just moved on a little.
There are three different ruins that you can explore along the route, with the old machinery, alternators and transformers still mostly in place so you can get a real feel for the industrial heritage of the island, and how electricity used to be supplied on the Azores.
The buildings and machinery haven't been used for around 50 years, and it's fascinating to see how they're slowly being absorbed into a jungle like environment, an amazing place to be.
It’s an wonderful walk, filled with beautiful woodland, waterfalls, streams, farmland, massive concrete bridges (bringing us back into the modern world), and traditional villages. At the bottom of the valley, at the end of the walk there’s a small museum called Núcleo Museológico da Electricidade, which is actually another part of the power infrastructure, in a more preserved state. Unfortunately this was closed during my visit.
